The new Report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change it makes abundantly clear what we stand to lose in the next decade without a significant course correction: the chance for a “livable and sustainable future for all.” Our home, Earth, is on fire and we must act.
The arguments against dealing with the impending impacts of man-made climate change were never good, but now they seem downright self-defeating. We understand that data can have different interpretations and no predictive model is perfect, but at some point you have to trust that there is an observable reality that we can measure. It is getting hotter and the sea level is rising.
The consensus of scientists and researchers from different countries and backgrounds working together is as close to absolute truth as we are going to get, and that truth looks terrible. We can wait and see if they were right, by which time it will be too late to do anything about it, or we can act now and prevent events that will almost certainly cause global devastation, kill millions of people around the world and become exponentially more hard to reverse.
In fact, we don’t have to wait any longer. Claims that these are natural weather fluctuations that we shouldn’t worry about ring hollow to Californians whose homes have burned down, Puerto Ricans coping with the devastation of Hurricane Maria for years, or Buffaloans whose loved ones froze to death in December blizzard.
Extreme weather is becoming routine, and it will only become more routine if governments around the world do not commit to aggressive intervention, including a massive reduction in the use of fossil fuels. Fortunately, the report sets out a clear roadmap to get to where we need to be.
Unfortunately, that roadmap will need to be implemented by political leaders, often more concerned with short-term election cycles. 16 years ago, the IPCC and Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to highlight the dangers of climate change. The clock keeps ticking towards catastrophe.
